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Nio Love rolled 1 10-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-10)
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 Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:54 pm
"If I just.. I've gone this way, but not that way, so that's got to be-"
Sunday had gotten lost again, but she was quietly looking for some sign that she could find her way to safety again. Fortunately, she tended to walk down unfamiliar roads - and she followed only road signs, instead of the look of the buildings around her. Everything had begun to look the same, and all that meant was that she needed stable working signs.
Not every road still had signs.
She tried to follow the ones that did, until she noticed the light. The tower rose above the buildings like a rocket ship, looming with the threat of danger - something that tall would be scary, if it wasn't kept safe. The light that shone from the top of it was green, and she remembered Caroline's words immediately.
It wasn't the apartments. But it was something.
She began to stumble run forward, waving her hands wildly. She searched for the radio in her hands, looking for the button and pushing it a second too late to catch the whole word she screamed into it.
"CAROLINE!"
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:33 pm
Most of the children had come home by now, and those that were not children were accounted for, but Caroline still waited. She was not especially vigilant in her watch, succumbing to distraction more than she'd like to admit, but she did her best to remain visible from the tower window at all times. And it paid off - when that little voice came through the radio loud and clear, she was quick to respond. She considered just staying there, giving her a beacon to come towards, but their prior conversations didn't really seem to imply that would work out all that well. This one was very, very lost, and she was sure that she would stay that way until someone came to break her out of it. She took off in a determined sprint as soon as her foot hit the landing at the end of the stairs. It shouldn't be hard to find a glowing person, especially if they were so close. That was wrong, as it turned out. After debating with herself about the best direction to go in, she gave up trying to decide and scaled the iron fence at the gates to perch at the top of a brick column, and from there she could finally see the faint hint of a violet glow in the near distance. As she ran in its direction, she called Sunday's name over and over again, hoping that she'd respond to the sound of her voice as she had on the radio, once she was close enough for her to hear it.
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 11:52 pm
It was distressing, when the light winked out of the tower. Sunday waited, because she had already broken her promise once, and felt very bad about it. She was sitting on a street corner, and the wet pavement as well as any of the unshattered windows behind her were all giving off that faint purple glow as they reflected her presence. She felt a little like a beacon herself, but she knew that whatever followed her light home wasn't going to be very friendly. She heard the faint calls of a voice coming closer, and she stood up to begin to make her way towards whatever it was. She only made it a few steps before she remembered; Stay, not run for the voice. Stay where she was, and wait. So she took those steps back, sat down on the corner, and then decided that standing up wasn't necessarily breaking the rules, so she hopped back up again. "HERE!" She screeched, before her hands began to wave like crazy, once more.
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:15 am
By the time Caroline made it to the glowing girl, she was out of breath and more disheveled than usual. Neither were a particularly surprising sight to anyone who knew her, but it probably wasn't the best for first impressions. She was right to think that jumping up and down wasn't against the rules, but there was a good chance that the woman would not have even noticed that she was. At the instant she was close enough to reach out and touch her, she snatched her up into a hug. " There you are," she managed between breaths. "Time to get you out of here. Not gonna leave you trapped for a single second longer."
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:29 am
Sunday could tell that she'd caught Caroline's attention, and boy did the woman ever glow! Green was a much brighter color than purple, and Caroline grinned as she watched the light bounce closer, just barely surrounding the woman who was raising her arms up - why was she raising her arms up - She froze in shock when Caroline's arms wrapped around her, and stopped breathing. It was easy to forget, but impossible to ignore, how much Sunday had really needed a hug. She melted into Caroline's arms like putty, and pressed her face against the woman's shoulder. She even managed to hug back, though it was awkward and gangly, as most things Sunday did were. "I don't-" She sniffed, and tried again. "-know what I did to deserve that, but thank you." After all, good, solid acts of affection always deserved appreciation. Especially when she'd needed it so, so very desperately.
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:44 am
This was a very good hug. Most of them were, but this one was particularly so, and Caroline kept her enveloped in it for as long as she could be. When she heard the little sniffle, she pulled back to get a good look at her. "What?" she laughed out, giving her another small squeeze in her amusement. "You don't have to do anything for a hug. Things like that are the default. Always there, unless one of you takes away permission." With a thoughtful pause and a slight tilt of her head, she looked over at her, expression somewhat tentative. "You do...I mean--do I have permission?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:53 am
Caroline had to be wrong - there had to be some requisite for getting hugs, because Sunday knew she'd been waiting a very long time for some, and all she'd gotten was the silence. She wasn't going to argue with a woman who was hugging her for no reason, however. She would take what she could get, when she could get it. When the woman became hesitant about whether it was okay to hug - after Sunday had all but thrown herself into the reply - she giggled, grinning with awkward, uneven lips. "Hahaha, of course you do! You have permission to hug me anytime you think I deserve it." Because there would be moments when she didn't deserve it. She'd do something wrong, she was sure of it. She would have to be punished, and no hugs was pretty standard. So she hugged Caroline again, because she hadn't done anything wrong, yet.
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:13 am
For such a nice girl, she just didn't seem to get it. Poor thing. Caroline gave her one more hug to even it out into a proper one-third nine, and though she suspected it wouldn't really help her feel like she deserved it, there was certainly no harm to be done. "I can't hug you all the time - that's how long I would have to be. So just remember that I would be if I could, all right?" She offered a smile in lieu of a hug this time, to aid in getting her point across. "Now--when you escape, you--if you want to stay free, you have to make your own choices. No more trapped in being lost. So. Now that we're getting you out of here." She gestured vaguely out into the distance. "You're free to go anywhere you want to. You're not lost. Not with me. Where are we going, now that you're able to spread your wings?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:32 am
Sunday flickered her eyes around as though she was letting Caroline's promise sink in, and then nodded her head sharply. "Okay. I will try to remember that." But all her talk of being free, or trapped, was starting to lose Sunday. She knew that it had all started when she admitted that she'd enjoyed her freedom from her aunt and uncle's house, when she left them at 18. The problem always was that when Sunday got what she wanted, she didn't really want it anymore. She'd gained her freedom, alone in that little dinky apartment October had hooked her up with, but she had no one to tell her what to do, anymore. No one to tell her her what wear, or where to go, or what job to take, or when to wake up -- As such, she'd done a rotten job of being alone so far. "Sounds hard." She admitted. "Spreading wings, at a time like this. Actually, sounds hard even before all the dead people started eating us. Now it sounds impossible. Where can we go that's safe, and still free? Other than heaven, maybe."
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:46 am
She wasn't wrong, and Caroline was painfully aware of that. Her brow knit together with sympathy for her awareness of the difficulty of it. "It's always hard," she confessed in turn. "Sometimes I'd say it was harder before this. Sometimes this makes it easy. Sometimes this does make it impossible. But impossible doesn't last forever. You just can't let it." Finding what was safe had always been a bit easier, at least for her; there had been plenty of time to think about the things that gave her comfort, to lose herself in the idea of what safety could feel like, if she ever felt safe again. "All right. Here." One hand dropped onto her arm to guide her. Metaphorically. "Close your eyes. And relax. I'll watch over you. Then think-- other than heaven--not sending you to heaven--think about everything that makes you feel safe. Doesn't have to be a place. People, feelings, things, words, names, colors, numbers. Everything. Think about those." After giving her some time to really think about it, she gently continued. "Got it?" Her hand squeezed her shoulder, hoping to offer some affirmation that she was doing well. "What did you find? What was safe?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:51 am
Sunday closed her eyes, pinched her face in deep thought, and then relaxed when it came too easily. She wished it had been harder. It wouldn't have been such an embarrassing answer. She opened one eye, and frowned a little. Her cheeks stained red, when she answered. "October." That was the opposite of freedom, and she knew it. But freedom didn't feel safe, anymore. kuropeco strictly quoting you to stab you with a feel knife, kbye
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 2:04 am
Fortunately(?), Sunday was talking to a woman who had an occasionally-debilitating obsession with the number nine - so even if she had been referring to the month, it would have made perfect sense to her. Still, she wanted to be sure. "October," she repeated, tone pleasant and free of any judgment. "What about October? The sound of the word? The month itself? The feeling of it? Is October a name? A person? A place?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:28 pm
Sunday sighed in a resigned sort of way, and gave Caroline a melancholy smile. "October's my brother." She admitted, her shoulder rising up in a half-hearted shrug. "When I left, I was so excited to be out of that house, but I had nowhere to go.. he hooked me up with a place to live. But that's about it. But.. it's easier, I guess." Her nose scrunched up with embarrassment. "It's easier living alone when I know he's nearby, even if we don't, you know. Talk much." It was her fault entirely, she was sure. October just had his own life, and she should never have thought for one second that just because she was free now, free like he was, that it meant she would get her brother back. He'd done the best he could. That should have been enough. "But thinking about him makes me feel safer. I just. Don't want to bother him, is all."
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